Senate renews anti-violence law

The Senate on Tuesday easily voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act – a major anti-domestic violence law whose renewal last year got tripped up by election-year politics.

The vote was 78-22. All “no” votes came from Republicans, while all female senators — Republican and Democrat — backed the legislation. Swift passage was expected; the bill sailed through a procedural Senate vote, 85-8, last week, and it has 61 co-sponsors.

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VAWA is a 1994 law – reauthorized twice since – that gave various protections and assistance to women facing domestic abuse. Vice President Joe Biden, then a Delaware senator, was the chief author of the original law.

In a statement Tuesday, Biden called on the House to pass the legislation expeditiously.

“Delay isn’t an option when three women are still killed by their husbands or boyfriends every day,” Biden said. “Delay isn’t an option when countless women still live in fear of abuse, and when one in five have been victims of rape.”

Last year, the Senate voted for the first time to extend those protections to same-sex partners, undocumented immigrants and Native American women. But those changes faced resistance in the House, and the chambers ended up approving competing versions of the bill – with each refusing to take up each other’s legislation. VAWA, which had been easily reauthorized in past years, largely became a political football during an election year when female voters were a key demographic.

Some Senate Republicans have raised concerns about a provision in the latest VAWA reauthorization regarding tribal courts. Under the Senate bill, tribal courts would be able to prosecute non-Native American men accused of abusing Native American women on tribal lands – something that tribal courts currently lack jurisdiction to do.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said that provision raises “serious” constitutional issues regarding the sovereignty of tribal courts and the constitutional rights of the non-Native Americans who could be tried there.

“It raises such significant constitutional problems that its passage might actually not accomplish anything at all for Native American women, while failing to protect the constitutional rights of other American citizens,” Grassley said earlier this month.

VAWA’s current outlook in the House is not yet clear. Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has been negotiating with Biden and other key players to ensure the legislation’s passage. The major outstanding issue appears to be the provisions involving tribal women.

“There’s been the introduction of some issues that are not directly related to the situation of domestic abuse on tribal lands,” Cantor said on the House floor last week. “That’s what we’re trying to get at. We want to protect the women who are subject to abuse on tribal lands. And unfortunately, there are issues that don’t directly bear on that that have come up that have complicated it.”

Cantor spokesman Doug Heye said the House plans to release its own VAWA reauthorization bill and added: “We’re going to continue to work with VAWA advocates and Senate Democrats to reach agreement so we can protect all women from acts of violence.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) pressured the House to take up the broader version of VAWA, saying lawmakers couldn’t “pick and choose” which victims to protect under the legislation.

“A victim is a victim is a victim,” Leahy told reporters. “And violence is violence is violence.”

The bill that passed the Senate Tuesday had minimal differences with the version that passed the chamber last year but died as the 112th Congress ended.

To appease House concerns, the Senate dropped the part of the broader legislation that would grant U visas to undocumented immigrant women who had been abused – a move meant to help law enforcement officials investigating abuse cases. But granting those visas affected revenue, which created a so-called “blue slip” problem because all revenue measures must originate in the House.

The latest Senate legislation also includes a provision that helps law enforcement agencies reduce the backlog of rape kits – a measure long championed by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).